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moment longer.
“There’s something else in here, Tim. It belonged to my brother, who died in the Endless Forest almost twenty years ago now. He bought it from a
roving peddler, and when I chafed him about it and called him a fool easily cozened, he took me out to the fields west of town and showed me it
worked. Ay, gods, such a noise it made! My ears rang for hours!”
From the bag she brought a gun.
Tim stared at it, wide-eyed. He had seen pictures of them in the Widow’s books, and Old Destry had on the wall of his parlor a framed drawing of
a kind called a rifle, but he had never expected to see the real thing. It was about a foot long, the gripping handle of wood, the trigger and barrels of
dull metal. The barrels numbered four, bound together by bands of what looked like brass. The holes at the end, where whatever it shot came out,
were square.
“He fired it twice before showing me, and it’s never been fired since the day he did, because he died soon after. I don’t know if it still will fire, but
I’ve kept it dry, and once every year—on his birthday—I oil it as he showed me. Each chamber is loaded, and there are five more projectiles.
They’re called bullets.”
“Pullets?” Tim asked, frowning.
“Nay, nay, bullets. Look you.”
She handed him the bag to free both of her gnarled hands, then turned to one side in the doorway. “Joshua said a gun must never be pointed at a
person unless you want to hurt or kill him. For, he said, guns have eager hearts. Or perhaps he said evil hearts? After all these years, I no longer
remember. There’s a little lever on the side . . . just here . . .”
There was a click, and the gun broke open between the handle and the barrels. She showed him four square brass plates. When she pulled one
from the hole where it rested, Tim saw that the plate was actually the base of a projectile—a bullet.
“The brass bottom remains after you fire,” said she. “You must pull it out before you can load in another. Do you see?”
“Aye.” He longed to handle the bullets himself. More; he longed to hold the gun in his hand, and pull the trigger, and hear the explosion.
The Widow closed the gun (again it made that perfect little click) and then showed him the handle end. He saw four small cocking devices meant
to be pulled back with the thumb. “These are the hammers. Each one fires a different barrel . . . if the cursed thing still fires at all. Do you see?”
“Aye.”
“It’s called a four-shot. Joshua said it was safe as long as none of the hammers were drawn.” She reeled a bit on her feet, as if she had come
over lightheaded. “Giving a gun to a child! One who means to go into the Endless Forest at night, to meet a devil! Yet what else can I do?” And then,
not to Tim: “But he won’t expect a child to have a gun, will he? Mayhap there’s White in the world yet, and one of these old bullets will end up in his
black heart. Put it in the bag, do ya.”
She held the gun out to him, handle first. Tim almost dropped it. That such a small thing could be so heavy seemed astounding. And, like the
Covenant Man’s magic wand when it had passed over the water in the pail, it seemed to thrum.
“The extra bullets are wrapped in cotton batting. With the four in the gun, you have nine. May they do you well, and may I not find myself cursed in
the clearing for giving them to you.”
“Thank . . . thankee-sai!” It was all Tim could manage. He slipped the gun into the bag.
She put her hands to the sides of her head and uttered a bitter laugh. “You’re a fool, and I’m another. Instead of bringing you my brother’s fourshot,
I should have brought my broom and hit you over the head wi’ it.” She voiced that bitter, despairing laugh again. “Yet ’twould do no good, with
my old woman’s strength.”
“Will you take word to my mama in the morning? For it won’t be just a little way down the Ironwood Trail I’ll be going this time, but all the way to the
end.”
“Aye, and break her heart, likely.” She bent toward him, the hem of her veil swinging. “Has thee thought of that? I see by your face thee has. Why
do you do this when you know the news of it will harrow her soul?”
Tim flushed from chin to hairline, but held his ground. In that moment he looked very much like his gone-on father. “I mean to save her eyesight.
He has left me enough of his magic to show me how it’s to be done.”
“Black magic! In support of lies! Of lies, Tim Ross!”
“So you say.” Now his jaw jutted, and that was also very like Jack Ross. “But he didn’t lie about the key—it worked. He didn’t lie about the beating
—it happened. He didn’t lie about my mama being blind—she is. As for my da’ . . . thee knows.”
“Yar,” she said, now speaking in a harsh country accent Tim had never heard before. “Yar, and each o’ his truths has worked two ways: they
hurt’ee, and they’ve baited his trap for’ee.”
He said nothing to this at first, only lowered his head and studied the toes of his scuffed shor’boots. The Widow had almost allowed herself to
hope when he raised his head, met her eyes, and said, “I’ll leave Bitsy tethered uptrail from the Cosington-Marchly stake. I don’t want to leave her at
the stub where I found my da’, because there’s a pooky in the trees. When you go to see Mama, will you ask sai Cosington to fetch Bitsy home?”
A younger woman might have continued to argue, perhaps even to plead—but the Widow was not that woman. “Anything else?”
“Two things.”
“Speak.”
“Will you give my mama a kiss for me?”
“Aye, and gladly. What’s the other?”
“Will you set me on with a blessing?”
She considered this, then shook her head. “As for blessings, my brother’s four-shot is the best I can do.”
“Then it will have to be enough.” He made a leg and brought his fist to his forehead in salute; then he turned and went down the steps to where the
faithful little mollie mule was tethered.
In a voice almost—but not quite—too low to hear, the Widow Smack said, “In Gan’s name, I bless thee. Now let ka work.”